


A Field of Sunflowers

by ArcanusAnima



Series: A Walk through the Garden [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8209981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanusAnima/pseuds/ArcanusAnima
Summary: While John and Dave are having their own adventure, Dirk begins his own journey.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to the next part of this series! This story runs parallel to Frozen Lilacs, and it would probably make much more sense if you read that first. That said, to give you a time frame this story begins about a day before Dave runs off to Earth. I'll keep track of when these events are happening compared to FL in the notes as we go.
> 
> Enjoy!

“I’m just saying, it’s really weird that your bro is sending us out on some wild quest when we’re supposed to be hosting dignitaries from the east.”

“It’s probably for that exact reason that he sent us out. D doesn’t need Hal or I going off at each other in front of the Black Sovereign, and we’ve been due for some time apart for a while now. Though how we’re supposed to find anything in this mess is beyond me when we can’t even see two feet in front of us.”

You make a wild gesture with a hand in front of you, indicating the insanely dense fog that has surrounded you since you started hiking up with mountain. The movement does nothing to even disturb the white mass and you think back at just how you ended up in this situation. 

A few days ago your bro had called you into his room to discuss a mission he was sending you on. He had, of course, noticed both your temper and Hal’s flaring lately and this was a good excuse to get you away from the castle for a few days. Apparently Rose had recently come across some mention of a rare plant with unique properties that changed depending on the time of day. She wanted to add it to her collection in the gardens, and so you were sent out to find it. Unfortunately, Rose could only figure out that the plants grew somewhere in the Veiled Mountains and that it was supposedly guarded by some force. Not exactly much to go on, and you have a feeling that you and Roxy were just going to end up wandering around lost for a while before heading back empty-handed.

Next to you Roxy makes a sweeping gesture of her own, wings fluttering angrily behind her. “Are we even going in the right direction? I swear if we end up getting lost on a mountain I will deck your brother so hard, ruler of Derse be damned,” she threatens, and you agree wholeheartedly. If this ends up being some wild goose chase you are going to be very unhappy. Still, you’re glad that if you have to be running around a fog shrouded mountain on the hunt for a possibly mythical flower you at least have Roxy by your side.

You shrug, attempting to peer beyond the haze to spot some sort of landmark. “I think we’re still on track. We just had to head north, and we haven’t made any turns that I know of. So it should just be a matter of time before we come across som- what the?” Your head snaps in the direction where you suddenly feel the presence of something coming towards you. You fall into a battle stance, drawing your sword from one of the supply pouches and preparing for anything. Roxy hovers behind you, and you know she’s ready to start throwing her magic around at the slightest hint of trouble. 

You’re not sure if the fog is somehow messing with your abilities or if it’s some power of the other creature, but you are utterly blindsided by an enormous shape barreling into your side and slamming you to the ground. Your wings cry out in protest as they are pinned beneath you, and you blink rapidly to try and clear the spots from your vision to see what the hell hit you. When you can finally focus you almost wish you were still seeing things. Looming above you is a huge pitch black wolf with it’s bared teeth way too close to your neck for your comfort. You desperately grasp around blindly for your sword, but your fall must have knocked it well out of your reach. Which leaves you basically defenseless in the face of a deadly predator. 

“Dirk!” Roxy shouts from off your side. “Hey, you big mutt! You better get off of him or you’re going to be in for a world of hurt!” 

You resist the urge to look at Roxy, unable to take your eyes away from the snarling threat mere inches from you. “Roxy, I don’t think now is a good time to be calling it names,” you manage to call out. The wolf has you pinned with its paws planted firmly on your chest, making it difficult to breathe. It reacts to your voice by growling low in its chest and sinking down even closer to you. You snap your mouth shut and attempt to flatten yourself further to the ground, ignoring the way your wings and chest are screaming at you in pain. 

“Jake? Jake! Oh my god, you can’t just go attacking people without reason! Knock it off!”

A new voice calls out from the fog, followed by the sound of someone running towards you. You don’t dare to look over and see who, or what, has arrived even though the wolf turns its head to face the newcomer. 

The footsteps stop a few feet away from you and the person, female if you go by the voice, barks out, “Jake! You are going to crush him if you keep that up. Now get over here so we can sort this out.”

The wolf, Jake?, slinks off of you with a small whine, letting you suck in a deep breath which triggers a coughing fit.  You roll onto your side to relieve the pressure on your wings and Roxy rushes over to help you stand. As you get back onto your feet you glance over to see who had stopped the attack. A girl stands with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face as she glares at the wolf with bright jade eyes. Black hair falls down her back in messy waves and her skin is a rich olive in color and littered in pale scars. She’s wearing a simple green dress that has odd colored patches sloppily sewn in places and a pale red scarf wrapped around her neck. Snow white wolf ears twitch on top of her head and a matching tail lashes behind her.

The wolf sulks over to her side. “Honestly, I don’t know what you were thinking.” She looks up to you, replacing her scowl with a bright grin. “Sorry about all this. We don’t get many visitors up here and most of them aren’t here for friendly conversation if you get what I mean. I’m Jade, by the way! And this is Jake!” Jade gestures to the wolf who still seems to be pouting. She frowns again, nudging the creature with a leg. “Jake, don’t be rude! And you need to apologize for nearly crushing that guy!”

You glance away from the strange sight of Jade scolding a wolf whose head easily comes up to her shoulders, and looks like she’s winning, to look at Roxy who raises an eyebrow at you. Well, at least you’re not the only one who is utterly confused at the current situation. Still, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Uh, hi! I’m Roxy and the guy who nearly got crushed is Dirk. We didn’t mean to cause such a commotion.”

Jade waves off her concern. “It’s no problem! Honestly it’s nice just to have other people to talk to. This is the most excitement we’ve had in forever, right Jake?”

You shift your attention back to the wolf who starts to change before your eyes. Fur begins to recede, revealing olive skin just a shade darker than Jade’s. Paws slim down into hands and feet and in a smooth movement it shifts from standing on four legs to two. Shaggy hair the same color as the fur that is no longer visible falls in the face of a, rather handsome, boy around the same age as you. Emerald green eyes shaded with embarrassment dart about without once looking in your direction. Like Jade, Jake has wolf ears and a tail though his are black in color. The two look like they could be twins except for the fact that Jake looks a few years older. 

“Sorry about attacking you, chap. Guess I got a little carried away. No hard feelings?” he asks, ears flattened against his head.

You can’t bring yourself to answer him, as your mind has decided to latch onto one very significant detail about Jake’s transformation. Next to you Roxy lets out a low whistle, and you have to agree. Either werewolves, as these two were definitely werewolves, didn’t have the same magic charms in place for body transformations or they just didn’t care, but either way Jake was standing in front of you without a single scrap of clothing on him. Not that you mind all that much, because damn did he have one hell of a body. 

Roxy elbows you hard in the side when it’s obvious you have spaced out and you jerk your head back up to his face. “Uh, yeah it’s fine. Always have to be prepared and all that.”

Jake brightens when you forgive him, ears perking up and tail wagging slightly. “Right-o! You never know when you’ll get into a grand round of fisticuffs! Or come across some beasty that needs to be taken down!” Where the hell did this guy learn how to speak?

“Anyways,” Jade interrupts, “what brings you two up here? We’re no where near any of the main trade routes and you don’t look like you’re hopelessly lost, so you must be here for a reason.”

“We’re looking for some special flower thing, though getting lost seems like a more likely outcome to this whole thing,” 

You shake your head with a small smile at Roxy’s vague explanation and elaborate. “We’re looking for something called a Raiah flower, which are supposed to be indigenous to this mountain region. Have you ever heard of something like that?”

You don’t miss how Jake and Jade trade a silent look between them, losing their cheerful demeanors. “Why exactly do you want to find them?” Jade questions, her face settled into a completely neutral expression. 

That’s certainly not the kind of reaction you expected to get over a simple flower, rare as it might be. Just what did Rose send you out to find? “We just want to bring one back for our sister. She happened across some mention of the flowers in her studies and wanted to add it to her weird collection of exotic and mostly deadly plants. It’s a hobby of hers.”

“Well, I hate to have to tell you this but we can’t let you take any of those flowers,” Jade says. “You see, Jake and I act as guardians of a sort to the Raiah flowers. Their properties could wreak havoc in the hands of someone with malicious intent or even accidentally, so you can understand why we can’t just pass them out to anyone who comes looking for them.”

Jake jumps forward and you have to force your eyes from straying away from his face. “That’s right! Our pack has watched over this area for generations and we’re not going to be the ones to let some dastardly fiend run off and ruin everything!” He strikes a pose, and you should honestly get an award for the amount of control you are exerting. 

“Well, crap. Does this mean this whole trip was just a big waste of time?” Roxy sighs, shifting to stand with her hands on her hips and turning her head up to the sky. “That’s just great. I missed out on a huge feast and what was bound to be some entertaining antics to come out here. Though I guess this does beat having to act all proper and shit in front of those guys from the east. They have sticks shoved so far up their butts I don’t know how they even walk normally.”

You close your eyes with a quiet groan as Roxy continues to badmouth the eastern dignitaries. This was probably why D had sent her with you for this as well. Even though she could act professionally when it was needed, Roxy had a bad habit of having no real respect for authority. Granted that was a trait shared by all of your family, but Roxy tended to be much more open with her disrespect. 

“Oh! I just had a brilliant idea!” Jake’s exclamation cuts over Roxy’s complaints. “Jade, why don’t we stick with these two for a while? We can see if they can be trusted with the flower and they can show us around some of the big towns and stuff! It will be a grand adventure!”

“That’s a great idea!” Jade takes to the plan immediately, though you notice she seems a bit more nervous about it. “What do you guys think? You let us tag along with you to go see where you live and get to know you better so we can decide whether to trust you with the Raiah flower.”

You turn to Roxy, running the plan through your head. “I don’t see a problem with it. By the time we get back all the excitement from the visiting dignitaries should have calmed down so they shouldn’t cause any issues.”

“That’s true. And it’s not like we have much choice if we want to get our hands on that flower. Rosey better appreciate all this trouble we have to go through for her. Although,” her expression morphs into a sly smirk and she wriggles her eyebrows at you, “I don’t think you’ll mind having a certain someone tagging along for a while longer.”

You feel your face heat up as your eyes reflexively dart over to where Jake is prattling on about something to Jade. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. So, we’re in agreement?”

“Yep!” She turns back to the wolves with a flourish, her wings fluttering in excitement. “We agree to your plan! As long as you don’t mind traveling back to Derse you guys are more than welcome to come stay with us for a while.”

“Splendid! Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get going!” Jake turns to start heading down the mountain, giving you an excellent view of his backside. 

Roxy snorts rather loudly, then tries to pass it off as a cough. “Do you not have anything you want to bring with you? Also, I get that living up here in the mountains comes with a whole different set of rules but you might want to put some shorts on before we get back to civilization.”

Jake pauses and glances down at himself. “Oh, right.” He turns back to look at Jade. “You wouldn’t happen to have brought along some of my things, did you? I didn’t get the chance to grab anything when I took off,” he admits with a grin, awkwardly scratching at the back of his head.

Jade sighs, pulling out a small charm from somewhere and tossing it at him. “You’re lucky I plan ahead better than you do. Now hurry up! I want to go see Derse! Is it true that -”

You tune out Jade’s random questions, letting Roxy have the pleasure of answering her. Instead you look around to locate just where your sword had gotten to. Luckily it didn’t get flung too far and you walk over to pick it up and seal it away again. Unfortunately, that distraction took all of a minute to do, and your eyes inevitably wander back over to Jake. The charm Jade had thrown at him obviously contained some of his clothes as he was in the middle of tying a segment of rope around his waist to hold up a pair of tattered brown shorts. When he finishes with that he slips on a dark green sleeveless vest that must be purely for looks as it doesn't actually cover anything. 

He must notice you staring as he jogs over to stand in front of you. He stretches his hand out for you to take, smiling sheepishly as he does so. “I really am sorry about earlier. I hope I didn’t manage to hurt you too badly?”

You take his hand, giving it a quick shake while admiring his firm grip. This close you see that Jake stands about a head shorter than you but more than makes up for that with all the muscle he has built up. "It's no problem. Think you might have bent a few feathers out of place but no real harm done." You ruffle your wings just a bit as emphasis which draws his attention like a moth to flame. 

"Golly, that's right! You have wings! It must be amazing being able to fly up in the sky and see the world below you. I don't know how I didn't notice them before, they're right hard to miss with how big they are. I can't imagine how large they must be when they're not all folded up." 

You smirk, seeing a perfect opportunity for a little showing off. "Here, I can show you." You take a step to the side, making sure no one will be in the way for this. Taking a wing to the face is not a pleasant experience. When you determine that you have enough room you snap your wings out. Fully extended they cover a good 16 feet across from wingtip to wingtip and the orange flecks in your feathers stand out starkly from the otherwise grey and white color scheme. They may not be the most colorful or magnificent of you siblings', but you still think your wings are fairly impressive. 

Jake is certainly impressed, eyes going wide and mouth hanging open in awe. "Gadzooks! Now that is certainly impressive!" He shows no qualms with getting right up in your space, stepping so close to your right wing you are almost concerned you might accidentally hit him if you so much as twitch. 

Jake reaches out with a hand as if to touch your feathers and your mind latches onto the thought of him running his fingers through your feathers and wow you really need to get ahold of yourself. You don't know what is with you today. 

"If you two are done checking each other out some of us would like to get moving." 

You both jump apart when Roxy calls out. You're feathers have fluffed out in response to a nonexistent threat and you hastily try to tuck your wings back down before anyone can notice. You glare back at your sister who looks as smug as a cat that just caught a particularly tricky mouse with Jade snickering into her hand next to her. 

"We were doing no such thing! I was just admiring Dirk’s wings as I have never seen anyone with them before."  Jake fidgets in his spot a few feet away from you and you are at least mildly placated that there is a prominent blush covering his own face. 

"Right, of course. Now let's get moving. It's going to take most of the day to get back down the mountain and I'd rather not try to navigate it at night." Jade turns and starts leading the way, Roxy falling in step beside her and you and Jake following behind. As you walk you think that the fog has thinned considerably compared to when you were climbing up. You’re not sure if it is just your mind playing tricks on you or something else, but either way you are grateful as it makes traveling much easier.

"So what's it like living in Derse?" 

You break out of your thoughts to contemplate Jake’s question. “It’s nice, I guess. We’ve never lived anywhere else so I don’t really have anything to compare it to. The marketplace is one of the largest in this area, rivaled only by Prospit’s so that’s cool to go through every now and then. Not really sure what else to say about it, since I spend a majority of my time working on projects in the castle.” Damn it, why did you say that last part?

“Castle?” Jake is yet again looking at you in excitement. “Does that mean you’re some sort of prince?” 

You nod a bit hesitantly, never liking when people realize you are part of the royal family. They always start to treat you differently, normally sucking up to get in your good graces and caring little about actually getting to know you. There were also the ones that would immediately start talking shit once they thought you were out of hearing range. It’s just one of the reasons you normally stay within the castle walls. “Yeah, I’m part of the royal family in Derse. But we don’t really consider ourselves princes or princesses. For one thing there’s way too many of us and we don’t care to make a distinction of rank between us. Plus we don’t have much say in how everything is run and that’s not something we even have to think about for a long time so really there’s no real difference between us and everyone else. We just happen to live in a giant castle.”

Jake isn’t disheartened at all by your clarification, but at least he also doesn’t seem to be ready to start kissing the ground at your feet. And now you have the image of him on his knees in front of you and damn it all to hell you have got to stop that. “Still, that must be incredible! All the things you must get to see and do. Jade and I never really get to leave the mountains, so most of the stuff we hear about is from the occasional passing stranger and the traveling caravans. It’s great that you came along, because now we get to explore!”

Jake continues to ask you random questions about your life and the world outside the mountains. With every new question you can’t help but wonder just why they have no problem with leaving now. If they are supposed to be protecting these flowers you don’t understand how leaving is accomplishing that. And if they could just leave whenever they want why haven’t they done so before you came along? Also, were they just living up here by themselves? It certainly seemed like they had basically no contact with any form of civilization, and not once did they ever mention any other siblings or family or even friends. Why would they seclude themselves like that? Your thoughts continue to work in overtime as you all make your way down the mountain. You feel like something has shifted in the air, and you wonder just what you are getting yourself into this time.

**Author's Note:**

> [Roxy, Jade, and Jake's Designs](http://arcanusanima.tumblr.com/post/151342283871/roxy-jade-and-jakes-designs-and-outfits-from-a)
> 
> Also, to clear up the time frame Dirk and Roxy left the castle one day before the incident that caused Dave to run off. They have been traveling since then and it has taken them three days to reach the mountains. I hope I'm not confusing anyone, the timeline will make more sense next chapter.


End file.
